Pendennis: The Observer diary by Oliver Marre

Ex MI5 boss to spill the beans for the right price

Forget the new James Bond film: very soon, you will be able to hire a real-life spy for the night. Eliza Manningham-Buller, who was director of MI5 until April 2007, is about to follow the likes of Tony Blair on to the lucrative after-dinner speaking circuit. According to friends, she has just signed a contract with the London speaking agency JLA, which represents people from Ant and Dec to John Humphrys and William Hague. Rates for its most expensive entertainers start at £25,000, though Manningham-Buller is thought to be on the market for closer to £10,000 per engagement.

Her decision is likely to prove controversial, since she has a history of making a splash with her rare public pronouncements. While still in office, she gave a speech saying: 'I rarely speak in public. I prefer to avoid the limelight and get on with my job', before going on to say there were 30 secret terrorist plots to kill people in the UK known of at the time. On retirement, having taken up a seat in the House of Lords, she strongly criticised the government's plans for the 42-day detention period for suspected terrorists.

Most intriguing are the security implications of her new career. When Stella Rimington, her predecessor, published an autobiography, there were attempts to have it banned, then the text was scoured by government officials to make sure no secrets were given away. Public speaking is harder to regulate, although JLA's boss Jeremy Lee insists she will not be in danger of contravening the Official Secrets Act. 'She will talk about leadership,' he tells me. 'Her experience of running an organisation amidst a great deal of stress translates into all sorts of industries. She won't be discussing how close MI5 is to [TV drama] Spooks.'

Mandy brought to book again

It's the story of a group of fashion-obsessed friends who eat in expensive restaurants and live the high life, with at least one of them in thrall to a mysterious Mr Big. Candace Bushnell, author of Sex and the City, tells me she is going to write about the Osborne-Mandelson-Deripaska saga. 'It's an amazing story and has all the great ingredients,' she said at a dinner to celebrate the publication of her new novel, One Fifth Avenue. 'I have to use it and I'm going to fit it in somewhere.'

Saint Michael

Tory on yacht shock: Michael Howard has been on a Saga cruise. While his successors were enjoying themselves with Russian tycoons, Howard sailed from Barcelona to Venice for free in exchange for a Q&A session. Parliamentary oﬃcials say he's even declared it. Does anyone feel nostalgic?

Heard the one about the rabbi and the old, old joke?

Last week, I reported that a joke about satellite navigation systems that Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks made this month in a pre-recorded speech for Sky Arts had already been printed in an article he wrote for the Times in February 2006. I've now seen a copy of a speech he made to think-tank Demos in May 2005, where he used the same analogy, as well as the transcript of his appearance on the Today programme in March 2007, when he told listeners: 'Memory is our satellite navigation system ... ' I look forward to chuckling over it again in 2009.

Another screw-up from the screws

There's looming embarrassment for HM Prison Service in the form of a new book written by journalist Jane Kelly about the year she spent teaching at west London's high security lock-up, Wormwood Scrubs. Called Inside, it's to be published next year by the Social Affairs Unit. Kelly says it includes details of interracial bullying among the prison staff, her romantic involvement with one of the prisoners and - most striking - the fact that she was sacked at the end of the year when the authorities discovered she was a journalist: 'It took them a year to Google me.'

Tales of mystery at the gallery

Is the Saatchi Gallery trying to promote itself on the supposedly neutral online reference guide Wikipedia? In recent months an online war has broken out between those posting criticism of the gallery and others making favourable changes. Some posters claim to be in touch with the gallery, and some changes were made from an IP address (the unique digital identification) that appears to belong to the gallery. There's even a message posted by someone signing off as Philly Adams - also the name of the gallery director - and leaving her email address, threatening legal action against a bit of the article she didn't like.

For God's sake

It's not just Richard Dawkins and friends who are paying for the London bus advertisements proclaiming 'There's probably no God ...' The posters are funded by donations channelled though the British Humanist Association charity. This means thousands of pounds of public money support the enterprise thanks to tax refunds claimed as gift aid. Charity watchdog Intelligent Giving describes as 'peculiar' that a silly joke is subsidised in this way.